Our Excellent Return to the Sea – Part 2

The Island

Our flights from Vancouver to Santorini were uneventful, but it’s always tiring to travel so far, and fully getting over jet lag will take some time. It’s a 9-hour time difference from Vancouver, and it always takes a toll and a day or two to start sleeping normally. I’m writing this section at 6 AM on the first morning after arriving, and Barb and I were up around 2 AM. We’re both hoping that by tonight, we’ll be acclimated to local time.

Santorini is every bit as beautiful as we remember. When we arrived yesterday, we were met at the nearest local plaza by one of the hotel staff who helped us with our luggage down the dozens of steps from the main street level to our hotel. As Santorini is built on the side of a cliff, there are always lots and lots of up and down stairs going everywhere. Santorini may not be a good destination for people who can’t navigate stairs. After settling into our room, we cleaned up and later on went out for our first dinner. By this time, it was dark, and luckily, I brought a flashlight as some of the walking paths to our restaurant, navigating many stairs, of course, got us through some of the rare dark areas. There are lots of people walking around, so it’s all very safe, but keeping your eyes on the steps is always necessary.

The weather has been pretty good the few days we’ve been in Santorini, sunny in the mid to high 20s. Yesterday, we walked about 4Km to the main town of Fira, which involved a lot of up and down stairs, and the heat of the sun was fairly strong, and when we got back the only thing on our mind was a swim in the pool which was a nice refreshing way to cool off.

It’s Tuesday today, and I have made a special reservation at the hotel’s restaurant as it’s Barb’s birthday today. We’ve been very happy with the food that we’ve had here and the above photo of the breakfast that gets delivered to our room every morning. This brings back memories of similar patio breakfasts the two other times we’ve stayed here.

Every morning we’ve seen new cruise ships arriving. Santorini is a very popular cruise ship destination and when several of them arrive like they will today, the streets of the town of Fira, where the cruise ships dock, will be packed wall to wall. We made a point of going to Fira yesterday when there was only one small cruise ship but today there will be four larger ships so definitely a place to avoid.

We have a few more days here in Santorini before we take a plane back to Athens to start the next phase of our trip. I’ve already started to upload our photos to my photo website here.

I’ll be checking back in a few days.

Baden